Monetary Integration: Prospects for a Changing World Economy (Rethinking FINANCE‪)‬

Only a short time ago, economists were predicting that the number of currencies in the global monetary system would fall from more than 150 to perhaps three or four. In 2001, Harvard's Kenneth Rogoff wrote in the American Economic Review, "It appears likely that the number of currencies in the world, having proliferated along with the number of countries over the past fifty years, will decline sharply over the next two decades." While a domestic currency had traditionally been conceived as part of a nation's sovereignty and tied to its political existence, there was no reason for that to persist. Leaving politics aside, the consolidation of currencies could be seen as a logical next step in the globalization process, one that followed quite rationally from the increasingly globalized pattern of trade. [ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]